I can pretty much handle all the water issues I need to handle using the water editor in BTP. However, it's super-clunky. Unless I'm missing something, this is treated more or less as a complete bolt-on to the system. I cannot even save a water profile to my regular database, instead it saves as an external file somewhere.

What I want to do is say:

Here's my water source. I am / am not modifying it by RO / Carbon filtration.
Here's a second source of water (some purchased stuff like DI water)
Here's the salts I'm adding to my mash water.
Here's my sparge water adjustments.

And have all that save in the overall recipe view. My initial UI instinct is to drag "san francisco water" into the "mash in" step on the Schedule view. I tried dragging Gypsum into the recipe in general - none of that worked. Instead, I opened a separate water editor (ANOTHER MODAL INTERACTION.....) which was hidden under the "recipe" window.

As far as I can tell, the water editor doesn't synch up with my schedule either- I tell the water editor I'm using 10000 gallons of SF water for this recipe, despite it being a 5 gallon match with an 8.33 gallon total water addition, and it goes along fine and miscalculates all the ppm of all my minerals because I'm adding 4g of gypsum to its 10000 gallons of water. It should definitely pick up the actual water amounts from the schedule.

At this point, John Palmer's RA excel spreadsheet is actually more useful than the BTP water editor.

I'm a big fan of the BTP Water Calculator and find it the most straightforward of all the calculators I've used, though it lacks the grist pH estimate that I like from Kai Troester's spreadsheet.

The way I use it is to save a water profile and salt addition with a given recipe. Since I'll probably want to use a similar water the next time I make that beer, it's all set to go. I've also saved my basic water formulation and saved it as the default, so it gets loaded every time I start a new blank recipe. In addition, I've saved the volume of water that would usually be used for that recipe in the calculator, as well.

Tying the water volumes to the recipe would be an added convenience, but it would have to be configurable for the many ways that brewers treat their water. Some only treat the mash, some treat all the water, some treat the mash and sparge differently, and others treat the mash and the boil only. I'm not sure that having to configure that would be easier than simply changing the water volume in the Water Calculator, but it might be.

I'm with you the water chemistry is handled fine. I do the same thing I now have 4-5 base water profiles that I load up (pale ales, lager, stout, etc.). The only thing I would like to see is the mineral additions for my mash and one for my boil kettle.
Tying the additions to my mash schedule would be nice.

Yeah, Jawbox, every system is going to require some adaptation and it sounds like you've found a good way that BTP works for you.

I would really like a built in pH estimator based on SRM, grist composition and mash thickness, like Kai Troester's spreadsheet (also used in the EZWaterCalculator 2.0). Then, I wouldn't need to run an additional program when building my water. Kai is looking for a brewing program to incorporate his calculations so that he doesn't have to deal with trying to support a spreadsheet. I think that would be good publicity for BTP, if it was the first brewing program to include such a calculator.

Last edited by slothrob on Sat Feb 05, 2011 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm with you the water chemistry is handled fine. I do the same thing I now have 4-5 base water profiles that I load up (pale ales, lager, stout, etc.). The only thing I would like to see is the mineral additions for my mash and one for my boil kettle. Tying the additions to my mash schedule would be nice.

Why are the water profiles saved and loaded in files independent from the recipe system? Why do the volumes used in your actual recipe have little to no relationship to the amount of water (and therefore subsequent modifications) in your actual recipe?

I like the way the chemistry is calculated (excepting the pH calculations), but what I want to see is better integration with my actual recipes. The amount of gypsum I add to a mash to hit a water profile will be modified by the size of that mash.

I'm not trying to argue, just express my point and my desire for integration.